Hi Paul,

There are definitely some oddities in the DOS version. As
you might expect, there hasn't been much demand for it for
some years now... _except_ amongst users of Mel Bartels'
SCOPE.EXE system. (That would probably have moved to Windows,
too, but it essentially requires a real-time operating system,
and DOS is close enough to serve.)

Re installing to the hard drive: easiest way is to fire up
the Windows software and use its Install to Hard Drive feature.
When you've done that, the DOS version will also switch over
to using the hard drive files.

You can do it by hand, though, using the xcopy command.
Change to the folder where Guide is installed, say, c:\guide.
Then use the command

xcopy d: /s

(where for 'd:' you should use the drive letter of the CD-ROM.)

The reason you need to use xcopy is that it will preserve the
folder structure. The file d:\text\bitfont, for example, will
be copied to c:\guide\text\bitfont. It sounds as if you may
have just copied everything into the c:\guide directory?

Re changing cursor keys: in DOS Guide, hitting Ctrl-F4 toggles
between 'cursor keys move the cursor' and 'cursor keys pan the
screen, as in Window Guide.'

More generally: Windows Guide has a nice dialog for changing
hotkeys, and DOS Guide doesn't. The way to change hotkeys in
DOS Guide is described at

http://www.projectpluto.com/hotkeys.htm

It won't help you with cursor keys, though; those are defined
internally, and you have to use the Ctrl-F4 trick to get at them.

Now, regarding setup of Guide and Scope on the same machine:
I think Scope completely ignores the COM port and similar settings
in Guide. It just knows that the RA/dec gets passed to it (or
vice versa). I'm not entirely current on how things are set up
in Scope. In DOS Guide, all you should have to do is tell it
(in Settings... Scope Control) that you're using an 'AltAz'
system.

(However, I've just tried this on the most recent DOS Guide,
and it's giving me a scope type of 'Not a valid object'. I will
investigate.)

-- Bill